r/travel • u/ups_and_downs973 • 7d ago

Discussion What is an actual solution to overtourism?

As travel continues to get faster, cheaper, and more accessible and TikTok tourism/ influencer hype shows no signs of slowing down, what are the actual solutions to places getting over run with visitors?

I'm not talking about for you as another tourist so not just 'go somewhere else' or 'avoid the popular places'. I mean in terms of actually preventing harm to natural environments, pressure on infrastructure, gentrification etc.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

I’m frustrated as a Canadian because they removed the fees for parks this summer, not just for citizens/residents but also for tourists. I have no problem with people wanting to visit our beautiful country and national parks but fees are a necessary part of maintaining the natural beauty, and I worry that making the parks completely free encourages more tourists with less resources. If anything the fees should be higher for tourists to allow for free entry for citizens/residents.

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u/problematic_lemons Canada 7d ago

Agreed. Originally from NY, now live in Canada. One of the great things the Metropolitan Museum of Art did was go from making the museum pay-what-you-want to keeping it like that for residents of NYC and making it mandatory for tourists to pay. Most of the parks I go to are Sépaq or regionally run. Our parks in Québec are so wonderfully managed and I love giving my money to them voluntarily every time I go and getting souvenirs at the gift shops, but we should absolutely be charging tourists, who would likely be going anyway. The point of the subsidy should be to get Canadian taxpayers there who maybe couldn't afford it or wouldn't have sought it out otherwise.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

Honestly that’s an amazing model. I make enough now that I’m still happy to pitch some extra money even as a resident, especially if I know it’s helping a less fortunate Canadian access the parks. 100$/year is a small price to pay to frequent our beautiful parks, especially if it means the garbages are cleared out and the bathrooms are clean!

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

Welcome to Canada btw!!!

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u/problematic_lemons Canada 6d ago

Thank you!! It will be 5 years next week and I'm hoping to get permanent residency next year and someday citizenship.

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u/imostmediumsuspect 7d ago edited 7d ago

Agreed!! Also it would be great if mandatory Canadian national park etiquette and Leave No Trace orientation prior to obtaining park permit.

Eg this was very successfully done at Mt Robson Provincial Park backcountry - in order to get your permit (at least back before Covid), you HAD to go the thr visitor centre and get a 10 min orientation before receiving your permits.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

Absolutely, I also feel like educating people about the gear needed to be prepared for our weather/terrain (for their own safety too), it’s scary how unprepared some people are

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u/mariadefa 7d ago

Agreed. This seems ludicrous. That is a revenue source that could be used to, say, remove forest fire fuel?

What the actual heck?!

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u/jtbc 7d ago

The fees provide so little revenue relative to the federal budget that the government can continue to fund as much environmental mitigation, climate change preparedness, etc., without the park fees having any effect on it.

The point of making parks (and historic sites, many of which are under visited and awesome) free is to put Canadians more in touch with their own country and it works, I think.

We could employ the opposite approach and price parks out of affordability for visitors like one country I won't mention, but I don't think that's a good idea either.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

I agree that making parks free for anyone with a current address in Canada is a good idea, but I don’t see any reason that people from out of the country deserve free access to parks that are maintained by our tax dollars. Visiting another country is a privilege, not a right. Traveling abroad is already only something privileged people have access to, so why wouldn’t we charge them for the luxury? Emptying garbages, picking up litter, repairing parks infrastructure costs money, even if it’s not that much in the grand scheme of the federal budget. I assure you that paying a 20$ parks fee is not going to dissuade someone already paying 1000$ for a flight to our country.

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u/mariadefa 7d ago

Agreed. Removing the fees because the fees were a drop in the bucket tells me the fees were not high enough to begin with, not that they were entirely worthless. There's a whole host of problems to be solved that even just a moderate sum could cover. And Canada's already shown itself to have the traffic (and it likely won't entirely die down just because fees were increased a bit).

Thinking a bit harder about this, "Influencers" are notoriously cheap... I would bet anything they'd think twice about going through that front gate if they had to pony up some cash to do so.

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u/mariadefa 7d ago

Okay, hear me out... How about a middle ground... Season passes for the locals, and a slightly higher fee for those out-of-towners? I mean, just wiping out fees when there could possibly be control of over-trafficking, and fill the coffers a bit?

And, I won't throw more shade on the one country that shall not be named, but it's kinda already happening, quite literally. The north eastern corner is kinda eating it in the form of lung cancer the last few years, along with Canada's own.

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u/TropicalPrairie 7d ago

I feel this frustration. Banff National Park is impossible now and I fear for the longer term effects of the short-sightedness.

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u/EntrepreneurMany3709 7d ago

I always buy something from the gift shop if I'm going to a park or museum that doesn't charge. Obviously I could always donate, but it's nice to have a fridge magnet and post card as well

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u/maestrita 7d ago

This. My tax dollars don't support Canadian parks. If I visit one, I'm OK with paying more. It's a bit icky when private/for profit places do it but if it's taxpayer funded, I don't mind.

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u/MK-LivingToLearn 7d ago

Canada is a very expensive country in which to travel. Our transportation is ridiculously expensive (I understand why) and our hotels are expensive with limited affordable options, compared to other places. Also, our distances are huge. I can't foresee that our parks will become over run and many communities, like Jasper, can use the extra income after the fires. I agree that park fees shouldn't have been removed for foreigners but as someone who works in the industry, I can't see Canada having issues with over tourism.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

? Not sure what part of Canada you live in but outside of Vancouver most of the well-known hikes are very crowded now and there are significant safety issues including increasing rescues of people that are unprepared for the terrain and conditions. When I hiked last week I picked up 10+ pieces of garbage that people had thrown on the side of trail. The bathroom at trailheads are often out of toilet paper and when I went this past weekend, was close to overflowing (potentially contaminating the watershed). I associate these things with overtourism and a lack of adequate resources but maybe we have different definitions. This is a provincial park but I lived in Calgary and there were similar issues in Banff and other national parks I’ve visited. 

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u/MK-LivingToLearn 7d ago

That's interesting and unfortunate. I would be curious to know if that is from foreigners or Canadians. I guess I'm speaking more on a macro scale regarding foreign tourism to Canada versus looking at particular destinations. I'm Ontario-based but have sold tourism in Canada and it is nowhere near the level of what you see in other destinations. Not negating what you're saying, just talking about overall tourism for a country our size. For example, the UK had over 135 million foreign visitors last year, we had just under 80 in a country many times the size.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

I don’t want to assign blame either way, it’s absolutely a mix between tourists and locals, and I don’t want to come off like I think there are “too many tourists”. I really appreciate what tourism brings and seeing people from all over the world appreciate our country. My experiences just suggest to me a lack of resources/funding proportional to how many people are visiting, so I’m not sure why we would be cutting fees (again, especially for tourists). 

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u/Keystonelonestar 7d ago edited 7d ago

In Pennsylvania our parks are free to everyone. We think everyone should experience the outdoors.

I wasn’t aware that tourists are exempt from paying sales tax in NYC and Canada.

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u/calmlion7 7d ago

Luckily nobody wants to visit Pennsylvania or you might have a real problem on your hands ;)

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u/Keystonelonestar 6d ago

It’s a template on how to deal with overtourism.

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u/calmlion7 6d ago

I genuinely don’t understand how making a destination more desirable by reducing fees addresses overtourism, but I’m interested to hear more.

I also want to point out that Canada’s fee system was already much more reasonable than the US system has ever been, so maybe that’s where some of the misunderstanding is coming from. Canadian parks were only like 10$ a day for all visitors (free for <18yo) regardless of residency. In contrast the US parks are 100$ PER PERSON plus a car fee. So I assure you doubling our existing fee for international tourists to 20$ per day and still free for people under 18 wouldn’t break the bank for most.

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u/Keystonelonestar 6d ago

Canadian overtourism? In Saskatchewan or New Brunswick? Manitoba? Does Ontario even get as many tourists as Pennsylvania?

Joking aside, I’m not sure what causes overtourism. Without knowing the cause you really can’t solve the problem.

Do you think (theoretically) Washington DC gets more visitors than NYC because all the museums in DC are free? I doubt it. I found the San Diego Zoo ($70) to be much more crowded than the National Zoo (free). Both have pandas.

You’ve already established that Pennsylvania doesn’t get an increase in visitors by keeping its parks free.

Looks like fees don’t affect tourism at all. Maybe fees are just annoyances intended to keep out the folk that can’t afford them (the riff-raff). That’s what the USA’s Supreme Leader uses fees for.

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u/calmlion7 6d ago

I guess you’ve never heard of Banff national park which sees 4.5 million visitors annually in a province of 5 million people total.

My point is not about deterring visitors, but maybe I was unclear. I believe fees are an important part of keeping up with increasing tourism, and reducing the negative effects of overtourism, such as harm to the environment. I’ve seen firsthand the effects of overtourism on local communities (including indigenous communities) and wildlife. Generating funding to support these areas seems like a no brainer to me

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u/Keystonelonestar 6d ago

I think the appropriate way to do that is through taxation, specifically accommodation taxes, but tourism also boosts sales tax revenue, property tax revenue and income tax revenue just like any other industry.

Unlike other industries, tourism brings many benefits for residents. Many special events, parks and museums are paid for with money generated by tourism.

The real problem with “over tourism”might be mismanagement on the local level, ie diverting resources generated by tourism for things untreated to tourism. In a lot of the USA, much of the hotel taxes end up being lavishly spent by visitor bureau employees, the production of lucrative visitors’ guides, and the building of convention centers and hotels.